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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster |
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Clustered along the back of the cabin, the party paused to listen to the ratty voices within, trying to gauge the numbers; between 4 and 10 maybe, but it was hard to tell. Borax headed off around the north side, close to the wall, while Ruby went to the south and Calvis and Neithar remained at the back.
Emerging at the front of the building, Borax discovered the front door standing open and three ratwomen heading towards it from the inside. Siezing the door, he slammed it shut to the accompaniment of a muffled ratty cry of pain as a nose was too close to the portal. He was just wondering what to use to wedge it when four shortbow arrows hammered into the wood just by his head. Grabbing them out, he threw a cry of "Thanks, fuckers!" over his shoulder and rammed them into the door.
As Ruby emerged from the south side, three arrows zipped past her. She returned the shot, but the archer was crouching on the platform opposite and in cover from the tree it circled and it went wide. Putting her head down, she sprinted across the clearing and over to the southernmost tree of the two supporting the walkway. Calvis emerged behind her, and ducked into cover on the east side, bow readied; Neithar moved north along behind the cabin.
Uncorking a flask of Alchemist's Fire, Borax leaned back and lobbed it, unopened, onto the rook of the cabin. "Light it up!" he shouted before setting off towards the cave mouth to the north. While the others looked around unsure how to do this, Meepo scuttled forward from where he and Calcryx had been left in safety, clutching a scroll. His squeaky voice sounded as he read from it, after which a burst of flame erupted on the cabin roof and the whole thing went up in flames. Reaching the top of the rope that dangled from the platform, Ruby found herself face-to-face with three Slitheren. the cave mouth.
As Borax headed for the cave, he became aware of ratty figures emerging from the bushes on top of it, and changed direction to climb the slope leading up to there. Neithar, also noticing this, stepped out from behind the cabin and cast a Sleep spell; his face fell when none of the rats did. Meepo, drawing his wand, put a Melf's Acid Arrow into one of the rat archers on the far catwalk.
 DM Note: At this point we realized that Borax's hammer was still Flaming from the previous fight; he could have used it to ignite the Alchemist's Fire. With it burning right there in his hand, it was obvious - but not to players or DM. Oh, well, Meepo got it done! |
Blades sang as Ruby engaged the three rats atop her platform, and Calvis started shooting crossbow bolts at the archers. Meepo kept up his bombardment of acid bolts, while Borax, hammer aflame, engaged four more ratty warriors. Behind him, Neithar cast his spell again, determined to make a difference; a solitary rat keeled over snoring and he gave up on spells for the time being. Meepo's wand spat more acid. His target from the previous shot was still screaming; the spell produced persistent damage. He was chortling over this when an arrow smacked into him, dampening his enthusiasm a bit.
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One of the rats atop the cave was significantly different in appearance from the others; at this point, she rapped out the words of a spell and a hemisphere of Darkness appeared, then jerked downwards as she dropped whatever she'd cast it on to lie just outside.
Ruby slashed her opponent across the belly, sending her tumbling over the rope handrail to crash into the bushes below, while Calvis doggedly launched bolts at anything furry he could see. Borax was having trouble with his foes; they weren't especially tough or powerful, but they were fast; time after time his hammer crackled just past a grinning ratty face and he began to get annoyed. They in turn had little luck penetrating his armour, but the occasional small cuts were adding up. Neithar daringly began to lob arrows into the fight, but his sensible aversion to shooting Borax meant that he didn't hit his target either. Ruby was making steady progress across her platform, with a second rat bleeding freely and the last one engaged as well, while Borax got a wound in and Neithar finished the same rat off with an arrow; he slung his lute around ready to play as it fell. From across the clearing, Meepo put a burning bolt of acid onto the nearest of Ruby's foes. This distracted it and she slew it, catching another on the backswing.
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On the north side, Borax continued to have difficulty pinning down the rats he was fighting; nearby Neithar, now out of combat, swung his lute back up and resumed his inspiring martial melody, encouraging his allies. One of Ruby's foes suddenly gurgled, coughed and died from her acid burns, but the others fought on. On the east side of the clearing, the flames had engulfed the entire cabin and the shrill cries and hammering from inside had faded away.
Neithar, his magical song completed, pulled his sword out of the ground and moved to flank Borax' opponent as Ruby finshed off her last foe. The archer on the mid catwalk retreated under the branches, only to topple out dead as Meepo's acid burned through into something important. From within the Darkness, the sound of a spell being cast could be heard. They braced themselves for some assault, but it ended without apparent result.
Above, Borax and Neithar were engaging in adroit sidestepping to keep up a flank. She shot one of their foes, and Borax offered the last one the opportunity to surrender and live. She was too furious to listen and was cut down.
Descending, Ruby faced the globe of blackness and shot a succession of arrows into it, which all vanished into silence; odd, at least some of them should have hit something solid even if they hadn't got lucky with a rat.
The dead bandit rats were searched, yielding a little money, some fairly well-made armour, twenty-odd short swords and short bows along with a heap of shortbow arrows, and a single potion of Cure Light Wounds the unfortunate owner of which had been too slow to drink.
Returning to the dark globe, Ruby advanced into it, sword extended ahead of her and sweeping left-to-right in an attempt to strike any creature lurking within. Suddenly, the sword stopped dead and her fingers slipped off it, her arm carrying on. There was no cry, and she carefully backtracked to find the sword hanging where she'd lost her grip. With an effort, she pulled it back, to discover thick cobwebs stuck to the blade. There was a Web spell inside the dark sphere. A flask of oil was deployed and it was burned away.
As the flames died away, two crossbow bolts came hurtling out of the Darkness, singing past Ruby and Borax. Ruby raised her voice. "Come on out. All your people out here are dead."
A moment later they could hear a quiet argument going on inside. Calvis flipped a coin for Comprehend Languages, and began relaying what he heard.
"We should give up, I heard a lot of dying out there."
"Rubbish! They can't see us, we've got cover, we can just pot them as they come into the cave."
"There were archers out there too and I don't hear them coming in for a coffee and some cheese!"
[A new voice, with threat and authority] "If you don't do your jobs here I'll kill both of you!" Rapid footsteps receded into the distance.
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1 Ruby strode into the Darkness, round a bend and emerged into the tunnel beyond. Two hastily-shot bolts bounced off her armour and she slashed at one of the archer rats, cutting her down in one strike. The other clawed out his sword and held it up rather uncertainly. From outside, Borax called out "Are you still alive?" Both Ruby and the second rat-archer answered "Yeah!" Taking this as a conversational opener, and recognizing the voice of the sensible disputant, Ruby levelled her point at the rat and barked "Put it down, answer some questions, and live!" The rat blinked, and then dropped her sword.
"Where's the witch gone? How many of you are there in all?" "Er, er, that way," she stuttered, waving eastwards. "We're fifty or so, I never counted," she continued, gabbling in haste. Ruby called back to Borax, Calvis, Neither and Meepo. "You coming in?" The rat raised a paw; "Can I go out please?" She was tied and gagged and left at the ambush point as the others joined Ruby.
Ruby stepped in and peeked around the corner to the right, while Borax explored a little to the left. He found stairs leading down, while Ruby was looking into a guardroom containing rubble, boxes, and several rat bandits hunkered down in cover, bows ready. Oddly, a metal fence closed off an alcove at the north wherein hunkered an extremely large rat.
2 Having seen the accuracy of rat archery, the pair decided on a direct charge, and barrelled around the corner and into the cave. The rats nearest the entrance immediately dropped their bows and grabbed weapons while the ones at the back shot into the fight with cheerful abandon. Calvis, pretty much out of spells, remained at the back returning their fire, while Meepo merrily carried on hurling Melf's at rats and Neithar resumed his battle-song.
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Ruby "flanked herself", stepping in between two of her foes to the left and killing both with a neat right-and-left. Borax hacked his way across to the right, hammer flaming, dropping rats far more easily now. Two archers broke and fled, opening the wicket gate at the NE end of the cave and running through. As they did, faint childish screams sounded from inside.
The rest were systematically dealt with, leaving one who frantically (and belatedly) was trying to open the cage containing the big rat, which was foaming and screaming hysterically. Turning his back on Ruby was a mistake, and he became rat julienne as he was smashed fatally against the bars.
Neithar, Calvis and Meepo were left to shoot the foaming rat to death through the bars, while Borax headed off after the escaped archers. Jogging through the open gate - which he noticed had not been enormously strong - he entered the next cave over and pulled up short.
3 Huddled against the far wall were half-a-dozen or so filthy, tattered children. Three more were strewn on the ground elsewhere in the cave, looking pretty done for though there were no injuries or blood-pools. To his immediate left, two rats were huddled at a similar gate a little into an onward tunnel. One was struggling to get it open - there seemed to be no handle on the inside - with the other craning anxiously over his shoulder. This one turned and spotted Borax as he turned to charge at her. A couple of blows took her down, after which he slaughtered the 'lock-picker' from behind. He turned and grinned at the children in what he thought was a reassuring manner. Several screamed and the rest simply froze in exhausted terror, except two who, he realized, were also dwarves. He walked across the cave, bending to examine the dead ones briefly. None had died of violence; they seemed to have simply succumbed to neglect. He found some ragged bedding, gathered the little bodies and covered them gently. This seemed to reassure the prisoners somewhat, and Ruby and Calvis hunkering down and passing out food and water even more so. Perhaps trying to reassert his cynical image, Borax asked, "Anyone got a rich daddy?" but got no affirmative answers.
"Did the witch come this way?" asked Ruby. Childish heads shook. She hadn't - but they knew exactly what Ruby meant. "What's through there?" she asked, pointing at the far gate. "We don't know. She takes us in there sometimes ... and no-one ever comes back."
Borax walked back across to the gate and smashed it open.
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Session Date: 15th June 2026 |
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